1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to damper for a door handle. More particularly, the present invention provides a molded-in gear rack on the pivoting component of the door handle and a fluid gear damper snapped into a boss on the housing of the door handle. Furthermore, the gear damper includes a rib configuration which allows the gear damper to be rotated one-quarter turn to engage the door handle housing.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of cylindrical dampers mounted on the hinges of automotive door handles and similar applications is known in the prior art. However, such a damper is typically relatively large in order to provide the surface area needed to dampen the strong spring force in the door handle because it is mounted on the hinge and experiences the maximum torque from the spring.
These prior art dampers have similarly been bulky to package. Moreover, it has been somewhat difficult to calculate the expected closing time of the handle and any variation of this closing time typically was achieved by changing the surface area of the damper, which further affects the size of the damper and can require a substantial redesign of the damper. Finally, the dampers have typically required several steps for installation which is of concern during assembly-line or automated manufacture.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a damper for an automotive door handle or similar application which is relatively compact.
It is therefore a further object of this invention to provide a damper for an automotive door handle or similar application which is simple to package.
It is therefore a still further object of this invention to provide a damper for an automotive door handle or similar application for which the expected closing time is relatively simple to calculate.
It is therefore a still further object of this invention to provide a damper for an automotive door handle or similar application wherein the required redesign to vary the expected closing time of the door is minimized.
It is therefore a still further object of this invention to provide a damper for an automotive door handle or similar application wherein the damper can be simply assembled and installed.
These and other objects are attained by providing a damper for an automotive door handle or similar application which includes a molded-in gear rack on the pivoting mechanism of the door handle and a fluid gear damper which is snapped into a boss on the housing of the door handle. The gear on the damper is of the same pitch as the molded-in gear rack and the pitch circles are tangent.
The gear damper is a one-quarter turn viscous door handle gear damper. During assembly, the damper is placed through the molded opening in the door handle housing and turned one-quarter turn. Lower ribs on the damper housing contact the back side of the door handle housing and top ramped ribs on the damper housing are forced over bumps molded on the top surface of the door handle housing. The damper locks into position by the top ramped ribs being forced over the bumps. After installation, the damper gear meshes with a gear rack molded to the back of the pivoting handle.